hedor

Forms

hedor m (plural hedores)^[1] Old Spanish wrote fedor.^[2][1] Fedor survives in Santander and Andalusia, feo in Extremadura and feor in Córdoba.^[3] A spelling jedor reflects the aspirated pronunciation of the initial consonant.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish fedor, inherited from Latin foetor (“a foul smell, stench”).^[2][4][5][1] The same word is Portuguese fedor, Galician fedor and Asturian fedor.^[3][6] Latin ⟨f⟩ became Old Spanish ⟨f⟩ and then ⟨h⟩; with the verb heder, the aspirated pronunciation of the ⟨h⟩ has survived in many areas where it is otherwise lost, which Corominas puts down to the coarseness of the word.^[2] A learned variant fetor was taken from the Latin noun later.^[2]

The Latin noun is formed from foeteō (“to stink”) with the suffix -or, and also has the spellings ⟨faet-⟩ and ⟨fēt-⟩.^[7] De Vaan derives the verb, through Proto-Italic *fwoit- (“smoking, smelly”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰuoh₂-i- (“to smoke”).^[8] Corominas notes that most Romance languages kept puteō (“to stink”) rather than this verb, which survives only in Spanish, Portuguese, some Pyrenean Gascon valleys, Dalmatian and southern Italian dialects.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), which fines whoever lets fedor “stench” escape towards the street.^[9] The Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223, in a 15th-century copy) describes hell as a dark place lleno de fedor e de fumo “full of stench and smoke”, and Berceo's Signos del Juicio, Corominas's first record, promises the damned grand fedor a las nares “a great stench in the nostrils”.^[9][2][4]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed close to the Latin one throughout.^[2][5] Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses it for the stench of the dead on a battlefield.^[10] Covarrubias (1611) defines it simply as a bad smell, beside hedentina, many bad smells together.^[11] The Diccionario de Autoridades describes it as a penetrating, sharp bad smell, and the Academy's dictionary of 1884 as one that usually comes from fermenting or rotting matter.^[12][13] The current DLE has returned to the general definition of an unpleasant and penetrating smell.^[5]

Timeline

• 1218–1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes has fedor.^[9]
• c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo (in a 15th-century copy) describes hell as full of fedor.^[9]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo: Corominas's first record.^[2][4]
• 1270–1284 – the Estoria de España uses it of the bodies on a battlefield.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin fetor, putor and virus as equivalents of hedor.^[14]
• 1532 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as a bad smell.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin foetor.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A stench: an unpleasant, penetrating smell: Del sótano subía un hedor a humedad.^[5][1]

Related words

• heder
• hediondo
• fétido
• fetor
• Latin foetor

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 338
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2850
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. heder
5. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. hedor
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. hedor
10. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. hedor
11. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 968
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 136
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 558
14. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 361
15. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. hedor